Fuji TV
Went down to Ichihara last night for the first time in a while, for a farewell party at my old workplace. On the way back, was stuck at the station for a bit since the trains were super delayed due to the wind. Uchibo line is almost as bad as Musashino as far as minor things causing late or canceled trains.
At some point I went to the men’s room. There was no one else in there, except for some girl in her 20’s or 30’s at the sink, which was weird but I didn’t think too much of it. At the time I assumed maybe the women’s restroom was totally packed or something. I didn’t really care too much – I’m used to having old women in the men’s restroom to clean, etc., which is pretty normal in Japan. Either way I went to the farthest of the 4 urinals to do my business. As soon as I’m starting up the process, the girl walks over towards me. Uhhh. So yeah this weird chick is standing a little too close for comfort, but there wasn’t much I could have done to get away from her. Here’s our brief conversation (translated from J):
Girl: “Excuse me”
Me: “Uhhh”
Girl” “Will you… go to Fuji Television with me?”
Me: “No, I’m not going there.”
Then she left. I finished, washed my hands (although of course like 90% of J-bathrooms there was no soap and nothing to dry your hands with), and went back out into the main area of the station to tell this story. The weird girl was roaming around, alternating between talking to other people and talking to herself. I don’t think she was drunk, but she was definitely crazy. I don’t understand what her deal was, but she was lucky I didn’t pee on her as a defense tactic.
Then finally, today, after two and a half years of watching the stamp count slowly increase, I finished it. I had 30 little “Masaki” stamps and I was ready to claim my prize. Victory was mine. Would I get like a special gold card to show my status as a power user of the dry cleaning shop? Maybe a gift certificate to help offset my years of dry cleaning costs? Sure if you do the math I’d only really spent about 15000 yen (USD$150) over 2.5 years, but the buildup was killing me. The grumpy old dude at the cleaners took my dirty clothes today and stamped my card to the last blank space (what you see on the left here is the new card).
Umm yeaaaaah. After loyally going to Masaki Dry Cleaners for 2.5 years, my prize for filling up the stamp card was a pack of &#@%ing trash bags. A whole buck fifty’s worth of plastic bags. Thanks a lot grumpy old dude.
Slept for a few hours again, at least actually in a bed this time. Woke up for another 9AM meeting time. We were taken to the せんべい王国 (Rice Cracker Kingdom), which sounds about 50 times more sweet than it actually was. It was pretty much just a small senbei store that also had a small factory in it. They at least had some funky little mascot characters I guess, but to be called a Kingdom I was expecting something more Namja-like. We also hit up some kind of museum village or something that didn’t have much worth mentioning except we found a hidden PaRappa the Rapper in the wall displays. Lunch was at some “wealthy mansion owner’s home” that has been converted into a tourist trap, but at least they had pretty good traditional Japanese food.
